Maria Restituta Kafka (1 May 1894 – 30 March 1943) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

nurse Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...

of Czech descent and

religious sister A religious sister (abbreviated: Sr.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to prayer and ...

of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity (Sorores Franciscanae a Caritate Christiana). Executed by the government in Nazi-run Austria, she is honoured as a

virgin Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...

and

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...

in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

beatified her in 1998.

Life

Early life

She was born Helene Kafka in Husovice near Brno on 1 May 1894, the sixth daughter of Anton Kafka, a shoemaker, and his wife, Maria Stehlík. When she was two years old, her family moved to the Brigittenau neighbourhood of

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, the imperial capital, and home to a Czech migrant community, where she grew up. As a young girl, she worked first as a housemaid and then as a salesgirl in a tobacco shop."Heroes of the Holocaust:Austria", Catholic Heritage Curricula
/ref> In 1913 she became a nurse at the municipal hospital in the Lainz neighborhood of the city. While working as a nurse, Kafka met members of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity () and entered their congregation the following year, at the age of 20. She was given the religious name of ''Maria Restituta'', after the 4th-century martyr Restituta. After her completion of the novitiate and her profession of

simple vow Simple or SIMPLE may refer to: *Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple Arts and entertainment * ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track * "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018 * "Simple", a song by John ...

s in the congregation, Sr. Restituta returned to work at the Lainz Hospital, where she remained until 1919. While working there, she promoted the practice of holistic medicine for the patients. In 1919, after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Kafka was transferred to a hospital in the suburban town of

Mödling Mödling () is the capital of the Austrian Mödling (district), district of the same name located approximately 15 km south of Vienna. Mödling lies in Lower Austria's industrial zone (Industrieviertel). The Mödlingbach, a brook which rises ...

, eventually becoming its leading surgical nurse.

Conflict and martyrdom

The Mödling hospital was not spared the effects of the 1938

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

, in which Germany annexed Austria. Kafka was very vocal in her opposition to the new regime, which had immediately begun to implement the Nuremberg Laws established by the Nazi Party in Germany upon its acquisition of power. She called Hitler a "madman" and said of herself that "a Viennese cannot keep her mouth shut"."Biographies of Blesseds, L'Osservatore Romano, June 24 1998
/ref> When a new hospital wing was constructed, Kafka kept to traditional Catholic practice and hung a crucifix in every room. The Nazi authorities demanded that the crosses be taken down, threatening her dismissal, but she refused. The crucifixes were not removed, nor was Kafka dismissed, since her community said that they could not replace her. Kafka continued in her vocal criticism of the Nazi government and several years later was denounced by a doctor who strongly supported the regime. On

Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and marks the first day of Lent: the seven weeks of Christian prayer, prayer, Religious fasting#Christianity, fasting and ...

1942 (18 February of that year), while coming out of the operating theater, Kafka was arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

and accused, not only of hanging the crucifixes, but also of having dictated a poem mocking Hitler. On 29 October 1942 she was sentenced to death by the

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

by the '' Volksgerichtshof'' for "favouring the enemy and conspiracy to commit

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its d ...

." The authorities offered to release her if she would leave the convent, but she refused. When a request for clemency reached the desk of

Martin Bormann Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, and a war criminal. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler ...

, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, he replied that her execution would provide "effective intimidation" for others who might want to resist the Nazis. Kafka spent the rest of her days in prison, where she was noted for caring for other prisoners. During this period, she wrote in a letter from the prison:

It does not matter how far we are separated from everything, no matter what is taken from us: the faith that we carry in our hearts is something no one can take from us. In this way we build an altar in our own hearts.

After her imprisonment on Ash Wednesday 1942, Restituta Kafka spent over one year on death row. On 30 March 1943, she was beheaded in the Vienna Regional Court. She was 48 years old.

Veneration

On 21 June 1998, on the occasion of Pope John Paul II's visit to Vienna, Kafka was beatified. She was the first virgin martyr of Vienna. Maria Restituta Kafka, the only religious sister to be formally condemned to death in the area of the " Greater Germanic Reich," was commemorated in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

on the evening of 4 March 2013, in the

Basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

of San Bartolomeo all'Isola on Tiber Island, with a

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

of the word at which

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

Christoph Schönborn presided. During the service, the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity handed to the basilica a small cross which Kafka had worn on the belt of her

religious habit A religious habit is a distinctive set of clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally, some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious Hermit, eremitic and Anchorite, anchorit ...

. The relic was placed in the chapel there which remembers the martyrs of National Socialism."The Cross of Christ versus the swastika of Hitler"
''

L'Osservatore Romano ''L'Osservatore Romano'' is the daily newspaper of Vatican City which reports on the activities of the Holy See and events taking place in the Catholic Church and the world. It is owned by the Holy See but is not an official publication, a role ...

'', March 6, 2103. In Restituta Kafka's honour, the western half of Weyprechtgasse, a lane running before Mödling Hospital, was renamed ''Schwester-Maria-Restituta-Gasse''. Also there is a park named in her honour in her native Husovice: ''Park Marie Restituty''. Near the location of her birthplace a church dedicated to her was consecrated in September 2020.

References

External links

Catholic Forum Page about Maria Restituta Kafka

Santi Beati Page about Maria Restituta Kafka
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kafka, Maria Restituta 1894 births 1943 deaths Austrian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns Austrian nurses Executed Austrian women People executed by Nazi Germany by guillotine Beatifications by Pope John Paul II Austrian beatified people Franciscan beatified people Franciscan martyrs Catholic saints and blesseds of the Nazi era Executed German Resistance members 20th-century venerated Christians Health professionals from Vienna People executed by Nazi courts Austrian resistance members Virgin martyrs People from Brigittenau People from Brno People from the Margraviate of Moravia Austrian people of Czech descent